for the introductory price of $13.99 (includes shipping and handling.) Books may also be ordered by sending a check for $13.99 to:

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948 New Highway 7

Columbia, TN 38401

Ph. 931-223-5990

Note: also available as an ebook or CD-rom.

This book may also be ordered from Amazon.com, Target.com, and Barnes and Noble's website. However, since SynergEbooks is a small publisher, and the author does this on a shoestring, we would appreciate orders directly to SynergEbooks if possible. Thanks!

If you are in the Hardy, Arkansas area, the book is available at Words/After Words Bookstore, 201 Spring Street.

Thanks for visiting this web page, and stay tuned for updates. Also, if you have a special "angel" pet, Beth would love to hear about it.

Notes From Rainbow Bridge is dedicated to the memory of 24-year-old Matt Wiley, the son of my lifelong friend Sue Wiley and husband Tom. I was just finishing up with writing the story when I learned that Matt lost his life in an automobile accident January 28, 2007. Since one never knows what to do or say to comfort the family when something like this happens, the only thing I could think of was to dedicate this story to him.

I sincerely hope that Notes measures up to how he lived his life. I would also like to think that perhaps Matt is at Rainbow Bridge caring for all the pets that Sue and her family have had over the years. Matt truly loved all of his pets and did volunteer work at a local animal shelter.

A short sneak peek from the book:

I had many idiosyncrasies, all harmless of course, many of which entertained my other pack members to no end.

I was fascinated with toilet paper since it was right at eye level and such a handy plaything. You could just grab the end of it and run. How fun is that? One day Anna got a new roll out of the storage space and was in the process of throwing the cardboard roller thingy away, when I tried to grab it out of her hand.

“Do you want this, you silly girl?” she asked me, starting to play tug of war. My answer was to snatch it away from her and take off at a dead run. Really, I only wanted to study and chew on this device a little, having never been interested in what was hidden at the end of the toilet paper, only the toilet paper itself.

This became a great game, almost a ritual. At the end of every roll, I would walk sedately into the bathroom, eyeballing the cardboard thingy. The humans would play a little “keep the cardboard thingy away from the dog” and then finally allow me to have it. I would prance off, eyes sparkling with glee, as if I had just been given a tasty morsel, showing my treasure to any of the other pack members who happened to be home. They in turn would ooh and aah appreciatively.

Another idiosyncrasy was born on a sweltering summer day. Samoyeds are not built for hot, humid weather, so you could usually find me sitting atop one of those holes in the floor from which blessedly cool air magically escapes. Anna understood how miserable I felt, so she put some ice chunks dispensed from the large white machine into my water bowl.

The ice chunks were quite captivating – sort of like snow, but not. How did they do that? Enthralled, I reached down to pick one up, but it floated merrily away from my grasp. Never being one to give up the proverbial dog house, I stuck my snout into the water, pinning one of the chunks to the bottom of the bowl so I could get a hold of it. In order not to drown in the meantime, I blew bubbles out of my nose.

This caused Anna to erupt into gales of laughter, telling me that I sounded like a pot bubbling on the device that prepares food for human consumption. I looked at her calmly and wondered why this was so hilarious. Me chomping on the ice, water dripping from my muzzle, made her laugh even more.

This was a win-win idiosyncrasy for me. I had found an excellent way to relieve a parched throat, and it provided entertainment value for my human friends at the same time. They called this idiosyncrasy “bobbing for ice cubes,” and I was allowed to show every visiting human how it was done also.